Rise of the biologics
Antibodies, RNA and gene therapy don’t necessarily compete with small molecule drugs – and they all rely on chemistry
For decades, drug research was all about small molecules. Synthetic organic chemistry overlapped almost perfectly – that was what you needed to know to make or optimise a new drug candidate. The few exceptions were proteins like insulin – naturally occurring hormones that could be isolated and purified to be given to patients whose own bodies lacked them.
Molecular biology – the ability to manipulate genes and proteins with increasing control – changed this landscape.